Out of the Office

Welcome to Airstream Yoga.

I'm Helen, and I am living my dreams. I live in an Airstream travel trailer on 11 acres of Texas Hill Country with my husband and 3 cats, and since 2009 I've been passionately growing yoga in the Wimberley Valley.I've got an over-abundance of energy and a focus on service, so I keep busy spreading it around. My teaching schedule is below. Occasionally, I have time to write about my life. Click the good life blog or facebook to keep tabs.

On to the Mat

There is A LOT of yoga out there, but most teachers and studios are failing or struggling. People are going to keep coming, but teachers give up in frustration because there just isn't an industry in place that makes it possible to succeed, outside of the few gorgeous enough to be celebrities, or wealthy enough to own slick corporate yoga machines. My goal is to help the teacher who wants to work in schools, or hospitals and rehab centers and other therapeutic environments, senior's centers and church basements and corporate offices and wedding places. Yoga teachers are often broke, and their classes empty, and yet, everyone wants yoga everywhere these days. We are creating an industry that didn't exist 20 years ago, and I create teachers who know how to go do it. Read on....

I teach The Yoga You Need,a safe, practical approach for all levels.

I volunteered to teach a yoga class at a church retreat early in 2010. With 18 mats in the back of my car, I drove the winding roads to a camp in the woods, and taught to more than 30 women in a cramped, musty meeting room. During the long and peaceful relaxation, I rubbed their necks and shoulders with a soothing oil, rubbed their feet, stretched their backs. Afterwards, they prayed on me, and a woman emerged from the crowd and offered me a job teaching seniors.

Sometimes, your path leads you where you didn't know you were going, but it fits just right once you get there.

I was scared to teach seniors. I don't like the ridiculously hard poses of yoga very much, it was easy to discard them from the plan. But I like the every day hard poses delivered hard. I feel better working a strong yoga practice, and I ache in a typical "gentle" yoga practice, which tends to indulge in deep passive stretching and long passive holds. I didn't want to hurt anyone.

So I challenged them instead, without any poses where the risk was higher than the benefit, or the pose inaccessible to everyone outside the Cirque de Soleil.

There were 8 students there the first class, 18 the second, 20 the third, and they were requesting a second class per week. After 8 months, we outgrew the kitchen floor we'd been using for class and moved in to the ballroom of the Wimberley Community Center. Two classes a week became 3, and then 5, and the numbers just kept growing. In a town of less than 3000 residents, more than 80 attend the Monday morning class of The Yoga You Needeach week.

The combination of challenge with risk management, maximizing benefits specific to their needs and educating them on the benefits of each movement worked. They felt better after every class, and then every day. For me it was like rounding a corner on my chosen path and finding a neon billboard proclaiming: YOUR NICHE YOUR NICHE YOUR NICHE in brilliant flashing light.

Never bored of it, never tired of it, never grumpy about it.The Yoga You Need is what I was made for.

Camp Utopia: The International School for Professional Yoga Instructors

In 2009, I created a 200 Hour, Yoga Alliance Recognized RYT program specifically designed to focus on the practical, professional tools and skills modern yoga practitioners wish ALL yoga teachers received. Our focus includes Ethics, Self-Study, Professional Teaching Skills, and Practical Body Knowledge. In our experience based program, we go way beyond the typical yoga school with teaching practice EVERY weekend. And we give you the yoga knowledge you are craving too; Camp U goes way beyond poses and breathing and into all the ways yoga makes life better.

In 2012 I created Camp Utopia's Advanced Training (300 hour) module, allowing graduates to attain their Yoga Alliance RYT500 status. The 300 is specifically targeted mentoring to help real professionals advance their careers to the next level. Inexperienced mat teachers will get plenty of opportunity to develop their confidence, while the seasoned teacher will create and teach workshops, retreats and series. Everyone learns more anatomy, chooses their own specialties to grow into, including Trainer Training or Studio Development, and receives one on one mentoring throughout the program. We host weekends and retreats in very cool places, including Mexico and Costa Rica, The Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, Colorado, and weekends throughout Texas and North Dakota., with a generous scholarship program to make continued growth fun, affordable, amazing. Check my website: Camp Utopia Yoga for the latest training programs in Texas and North Dakota.

"I'm gonna pretend this is heaven, babe, you know, just in case, I get up to the gates, and they don't recognize my face." ~ The Pines